The amazing thing here is that AT&T actually employs bureaucrats who drive the product development of their suppliers. When AT&T wants to sell a new "differentiated" phone - that is, one with another stupid gimmick - they formally request that it be built by one of their manufacturers. Then, astonishingly, the phone makers actually comply with these ridiculous requests, and they build the phones. When you think about the implications of this process, you realize that AT&T's product managers are basically acting as phone designers by proxy.

The more amazing thing perhaps is that it's been like this for so long. There's only one company that doesn't go along with it.

"Motorola Mobility CEO Sanjay Jha now says he'd be interested in shipping Windows Phones if Motorola could get the same kind of deal that Nokia got from Microsoft."<br />
<br />
Good luck with that.

HTC is the one to watch: it's in Android and Windows Phone. Ecosystems tend to break towards 80-20 as well - and HTC could turn out to be the 80.